Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
Kate Sweeney via tsurufoto
+ Lesbian, feminist, ethical, diverse and sex-positive porn is not only a growing industry but also reflects cultural change:
“Chauntelle Tibbals, a sociologist and visiting scholar at USC, believes that more ethically minded lesbian porn is currently experiencing wider growth margins than other adult content genres. ‘Companies like Girlfriends Films and Juicy Pink Box,’ she says, ‘are reaching new audiences—people who, perhaps because of various perceptions about adult content, maybe hadn’t pursued porn previously.’ […]
She also points to deeper cultural trends that are contributing to the emergence of a new sexual climate. Fair-trade products and sustainable energy are two examples of this trend. ‘Our culture is maturing,’ she says, ‘getting sexually richer. People are increasingly willing to acknowledge that just because I like one thing doesn’t mean someone else has to.’
The porn industry is, as Tibbals says, ‘one mirror of our contemporary culture.’ ‘Porn is the result of a symbiotic relationship existing between performers, producers, consumers, and wider culture. The manifestation of this relationship is always shifting, and it’s never created in a vacuum.’”
via new dawn twisted
+ Prose and Lore: Memoir Stories About Sex Work, a lit journal from the Red Umbrella Project, has a new issue out July 10 and is fantastic. The following excerpt is from the introduction, by editor Audacia Ray:
“I’ve never been more sure that there is inherent value in the life stories of people in the sex trades and that it is important to put these stories out into the world. There is no way to summarize or generalize about the experiences of people in the sex trades. The only way to know anything about the sex trades is to hear and trust the many stories of the people involved in it, and to keep listening, even when the stories offer conflicting viewpoints. We invite you to join us in being a witness to these stories.”
via new dawn twisted
+ Have you met Miss July? You really should. She’s super great.
+ Em and Lo has some guidelines for having sex outside, including wearing a skirt without underwear if you are a skirt-wearing human, using sunscreen if anywhere that doesn’t normally see the sun will be exposed and not leaving anything behind:
“Outdoor sex, a subset of public sex, by definition includes the perpetual potential danger of being discovered — that’s part of its thrill. But most people don’t want to see you doing it. Therefore, you must calculate the risks and unless the chances of being discovered are next to nil, don’t do it.”
Ni’ma Ford via switchteams
+ People are really bad at remembering sex, according to a new study:
“While good sex has been shown to mysteriously (and transiently) wipe your memory clean, there is now some reason to speculate that our memories also might be giving sex (and, perhaps, our performance) a huge grade inflation. Pointing out the inconsistencies when we self-report our sexual memories was the intent of a new study done by the Duke Clinical Research Institute. A group of researchers lead by Dr. Kevin Weinfurt tested the accuracy of month-long recalls for a variety of sexual functions (including kissing, interest in sex, problems with sex, frequency, orgasms, etc.—it’s a sexy list). The 202 sexually-active participants were required to document their daily sexual activity in detail every day for thirty days, and at the end of the month they’d be asked to estimate their overall reaction to each of the sexual determinants or “recall” the past month’s exploits. As it turns out, some wear rose-tinted glasses when they look back on their sex lives, while others have Eternal Sunshine-ed their libido.”
via pinktacolovers
+ At AlterNet, Martha Rosenberg writes about whether pharmaceutical libido boosters for women/the “female viagra” are a scam, including how women are pressured to be both more and less sexual, the medicalization of women’s sexuality and more:
“Of course, many couples are excited about the prospect of steamy new sexual excursions. But, like pills for insomnia, heartburn, hay fever, shyness, attention deficit and mood disorder, women’s sexuality is now also being medicalized into a disease. Women can now be told by their partners and society that they are suffering from female sexual dysfunction even if they feel fine. Or, as an ad when a different ‘female Viagra’ was under consideration put it, ‘If There is No Desire to Get Physically Romantic, You Could Be Suffering from HSDD.'”
ellie – brooklyn, photo by josh wool via josh wool
+ At Sexis, Katelyn discusses the history of kink from the eighteenth century onwards:
“Bettie Page, a 1950s pin-up model, helped bring BDSM into mainstream American culture. Her infamous photos were the subject of public hearings headed by Estes Kefauver, a senator who twice ran for president. The Kefauver hearing centered on the indecency of pornography – especially images and video featuring BDSM elements. The 1959 trial was based on the premise that “merchants of filth” were “as dangerous to society as dope peddlers.”
Bettie herself was subpoenaed for the 1959 Kefauver trials in violation of obscenity laws, after a few of her naughtier photos, of her dressed in fetish heels and black lingerie, resurfaced in a porn shop. The stills and videos of Bettie spanking disobedient yet consenting women were seized by New York police.”
+ At BlogHer, an asexual lesbian writes about how she realized her identity:
“I’m an asexual who is romantically attracted to the same sex and does not enjoy or want to have sex, and I’m trying to figure out how to live in the world as an asexual lesbian. I realize that pairing “asexual” and “lesbian” together can be confusing. If I say I am a lesbian, most folks assume that means I am sexually attracted to women. I don’t know that there is a word that means romantically attracted but not sexually attracted to women, so I just co-opt the word “lesbian” as a quick way to communicate that men need not apply to be in a relationship with me. I tag on “asexual” to let the lesbians know up front that in all likelihood, they won’t be having sex with me.”
via mona-kahlo (sneak peak of Los Angelenos by Illie. // ft. Tiana & Mali of Double Virgo. // photographed by: Mona Kahlo)
+ How much of the internet is for porn? The BBC is on it:
“One figure that cropped up again and again is that 37% of the internet is made up of pornographic material. Many of those people who quoted the figure took it from a press release put out in June 2010 by net filtering firm Optenet.
A spokesman for the firm told the BBC: ‘The statistics are not up-to-date and I would not use them to reflect the reality of the web nowadays.'”
via funk brother j
All of the photographs on NSFW Sundays are taken from various tumblrs and do not belong to us. All are linked and credited to the best of our abilities in hopes of attracting more traffic to the tumblrs and photographers who have blessed us with this imagery. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If there is a photo included here that belongs to you and you want it removed, please email bren [at] autostraddle dot com and it will be removed promptly, no questions asked.
The photos …all the photos are just wonderful. I have a special hankering for the third one but all photos are damn beautiful.
The BBC thing about the amount of porn online amused me…I would predict it higher.
I was particularly interested in the BlogHer asexual lesbian perspective and how people who identify as that, navigate relationships in a world that is largely dominated by sexual attraction, penetrative sex, etc. What do you do in situations like these, where you’re only a small percentage of the population? What an alienating feeling. I’d love to hear more personal stories and experiences (asexual, demisexual, etc) about this on AS and in so called “sex positive” circles.
If you want to know more about lesbians + asexual, I would super recommend a book edited by Esther Rothblum and Kathleen Brehony called Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians. It is a collection of some good essays plus some narratives from couples they interviewed. It kind of made me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I read it. <3
Thanks for the heads up.
The female Viagra thing was interesting. I think that’s always the question, with women and sex. We’re supposed to always be sexually available, which is why rape wasn’t illegal in marriages for a godawful long time. It’s like when talk shows talk about what women can do to get themselves fixed with botox or whatever if they don’t like penises/penetration. Do they NEED to get fixed? Maybe, maybe not. My mom is asexual, has been married for close to thirty years, and has gone to doctor after doctor to attempt to fix herself so that my dad wouldn’t cheat on her. He did anyway. Where is the line between helping someone who actually wants the help and pushing help onto someone who honestly doesn’t need it? How do we figure out what’s societal misogyny and rape culture and what’s actual medical advances?
Fascinating shit.
Probs totes my fav NSFW Sunday in terms of both fotos and content EVERR. Merci mille fois!
I mean, You Do You and everything, but “I don’t know that there is a word that means romantically attracted but not sexually attracted to women” = that term could either be “gynoromantic” or “homoromantic” if you’re using Ace vocabulary. Asexualesbian works too.
Also, for funsies, I’ve been to the bar in L’viv, Ukraine, the birthplace of Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch (founder of masochism), that is in his honour. It was a pretty fun bar, although they didn’t seem to be too compassionate about consent (i.e. It took a few stern refusals before they’d stop trying to flog me while ordering my drinks)